Outreach and Educational Activities

The BSL is involved in a variety of
outreach activities ranging from lectures to lab tours and
educational displays.
Recorded information on current earthquake activity is updated regularly on our
information tape (510-642-2160). Additional basic information on earthquakes
and seismic hazards for northern and
central California, as well as other information about seismology and our research,
can be found on our extensive set of web pages at http://seismo.berkeley.edu/.

The Hayward Fault runs through the UCB campus. It last ruptured
on October 21, 1868. Since then, new scientific insights put the average
interval between large earthquakes on the Hayward Fault at 140
years; 2008 represented an important anniversary.

The 1868 Earthquake Alliance used
the 140th anniversary as a unique opportunity to increase public awareness
of seismic hazard posed by the Hayward Fault and other East Bay Faults, promote
earthquake preparedness and mitigation, and explore the ways in
which the 1868 Hayward earthquake affected the personal lives,
culture, economy, and development of the greater San Francisco Bay
Area (http://1868alliance.org). The BSL contributed to the
commemoration activities and participated in their organization. Around the time of the
anniversary, Peggy Hellweg led several tours of the Hayward Fault on the UC Berkeley Campus.
The tour for the readers of Bay Nature (and others) was so popular that she took
two groups to Memorial Stadium and beyond. On a Saturday in November, the members of the Northern
California Geological Society visited the Campus to see the fault as well as the retrofit projects. Several
teacher training workshops also featured talks and presentations by Peggy Hellweg
on the Hayward Fault and earthquake hazards in the Bay Area and around the world.

The 140th anniversary of the Hayward Earthquake was also the
impetus for holding the ``Third Conference on Earthquake
Hazards in the Eastern San Francisco Bay Region," which took
place October 22-26, 2008, at Cal State University East Bay
(Hayward). The previous two conferences were held in 1982 and
1992. The BSL co-organized this conference, with Roland
Bürgmann and Peggy Hellweg serving on the organizing
committee. The meeting included three days of technical
sessions, a public forum, and field trips. Many members of the
BSL presented their recent work at the meeting.

Dr. Kevin Mayeda is currently heading a major outreach project designed to
raise awareness of seismic hazard posed by the Hayward Fault. One goal
is to develop a series of age-appropriate presentations and pamphlets
for BSL scientists to use when giving talks at area schools and other
community organizations. A second goal of this project is to revamp
the existing BSL outreach web site, with new activities and teacher
resources, videos about the Hayward Fault and research by BSL scientists,
and a new look and feel. The Richard and Rhoda Goldman Foundation provided
startup funding for this project. This summer, the BSL hired three UC Berkeley
undergraduate students, Sam Peach, Matt DeMartini, and Chris Rawles,
to produce presentations and videos about the Hayward Fault, earthquakes,
and current earthquake research. With Jennifer Taggart, they also
redesigned the outreach portion of the BSL web page. This project is
expected to continue, with more presentations and videos being created
over time as funding allows. This new suite of web pages is available at
http://seismo.berkeley.edu/outreach

In this year's Lawson Lecture, Chris
Poland of Degenkolb Engineers spoke on ``Building Resilient Communities:
Fresh Challenges for Earthquake Professionals." In many cases, the need to develop and implement
earthquake resistance founders in misunderstanding,
complacency, and poor funding. The best way to ensure that
a municipality can recover from a natural disaster is prepare for it in advance.
A city such as San Francisco needs to name the hazard, define performance, and
establish goals that represent the resiliency needed to support the community's
natural ability to rebound from such a major seismic event, and then work toward those goals.
The Lawson Lectures are webcast at
http://seismo.berkeley.edu/news/lawson_lecture.

As in every year, tours and presentations formed an important
part of BSL's public relations activities. Each month, several
groups, ranging from middle-school students to scientists and
engineers, tour our laboratory under the guidance of a
graduate student or a member of the staff.

During 2008-2009 the BSL conducted several tours, both for local schools
and groups from around the world. Several school classes at different
grade levels received tours. BSL graduate students
also visited local elementary, middle, and high schools to
talk about earthquakes and how we measure them. This year,
particular attention was given to updating and rejuvenating
our hallway displays. Jennifer Taggart provided the basic
themes and backdrops for displaying BSL's past and current
role in seismology, complete with the instrumentation and
networks used along the way.

In addition to the tours, Drs. Allen, Dreger, Hellweg,
Mayeda, and Uhrhammer presented talks on earthquakes and related
phenomena to public groups and the media.

The BSL again participated in CalDay. This annual event happened to
occur on the anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake this year.
Attendance was exceptionally good. The visitors learned about UC Berkeley's
role in earthquake monitoring, watched a streaming feed of earthquake data,
jumped up and down to ``make a quake," played with the earthquake machine,
made P and S-waves with springs, learned about earthquake preparedness, and
were given sample seismograms. The BSL co-sponsored a lecture with the
Earth and Planetary Science department on ``A Tectonic Time Bomb in Our
Backyard: Earthquake Potential of the Hayward Fault'' by Associate Research Seismologist
Kevin Mayeda.

The BSL provides local waveform
feeds for helicorders at visitor centers associated with BDSN
stations (CMB and MHC). Organizations such as LHS, KRON,
and KPIX receive feeds from BKS via dedicated phone lines for display,
while the USGS Menlo Park uses data from CMB for display in the lobby
of the seismology building.

We continue to maintain and update our presence on the
Internet. The Web pages are intended to provide a source of earthquake
information for the public. They also present information about
the networks we operate, including station profiles.
This benefits the research
community as well. The BSL Web pages publicize seminar schedules,
advertise courses, and describe our research, as well as our operations.
They offer updates on recent earthquake activity, details on Bay Area
seismicity and hazards, and links to other earthquake and earth science
servers. We also use the web server to distribute information internally
among BSL personnel, with such details as the computing and
operational resources, rosters, and schedules for various purposes.

Since September, 2008 the BSL has hosted its own blog
(http://seismo.berkeley.edu/seismo.blog). These pages are full of
fascinating examples of geophysical science written with a clarity that can
be appreciated by all. The entries are usually related to the latest
happenings in the seismic world and are thus very current, increasing
their interest even more.

The UC Berkeley Earthquake Research Affiliates (ERA) Program is an
outreach project of the BSL. The
purpose is to promote the support of earthquake research while
involving corporations and governmental agencies in academic
investigation and education activities such as conferences and
field trips. The ERA program provides an interface between
the academic investigation and practical application of earthquake
studies.

Peggy Hellweg oversees the outreach activities at the BSL. Barbara
Romanowicz, Bob Uhrhammer, Rick McKenzie, Jennifer Taggart, and many other
faculty, staff, and students at the BSL contribute to the
outreach activities. Rick McKenzie, Jennifer Taggart, and Peggy Hellweg
contributed to the preparation of this section.